Month: September 2015

The Fragility Of Control

I’m a fan of the concept of defense in depth, which is one reason why I hate any solution that is dependent on everybody acting in a particular way. Prohibitions are just such a solution. Gun control advocates like to point to countries such as Japan as proof that control works. Of course gun control relies on everybody in society being unarmed so as soon as one person breaks the prohibition the entire solution falls to pieces. Even though manufacturing firearms is verboten in Japan, at least for the serfs, one Japanese man managed to build numerous firearms in his home:

A 60 year old man in Japan was recently arrested for building homemade guns of his own design. According to him it was his hobby for the last 40 years. He used scrap anvils as a source of hardened steel and crafted his own ammunition using toy caps and casted lead bullets.

In this case the man was merely building firearms as a hobby and no evidence exists that he meant to sell them to nefarious sorts. Although they’re a bit rough overall the firearms actually look pretty well made. More importantly, due to Japan’s strict firearm restrictions, the man was probably one of the more heavily armed individuals in the country. Had he decided to either use or sell his firearms nefarious purposes it would have left the general population at a severe disadvantage.

No solution that depends on everybody in a society to act in a specific way can succeed because there will always people that act outside of those specifications. That’s why I prefer solutions that can be decentralized. Restricting access to firearms only works so long as everybody is unarmed. Allowing individuals to arm themselves reduces the overall advantage a firearm provides to a single individuals. Arming individuals is a better solutions to gun violence than restricting gun ownership precisely because it relies on hardening individuals instead of expecting them to act in a specific manner.

Cell Phone Carrier Illegally Tapped Journalist’s Phone Proving Privacy Can’t Be Protected By Laws

Whenever a bill purporting to strengthen privacy protections enters the political field I receive numerous requests to support it. I always politely decline, which results in the advocate saying some variation of “I know you’re an anarchist but it doesn’t take any time to call your representatives.” It’s a false argument because it does take time to call the person who supposedly represents me (even though I never appointed him to represent me) in Congress. And since privacy laws are ineffective at protecting privacy it takes time that will gain me absolutely nothing, which is not a wise investment in my opinion.

Privacy laws are just like any other State decree. Those who are willing to tolerate the laws will follow them and those who find them burdensome will ignore them:

Telco giant Vodafone illegally ­accessed a journalist’s mobile phone records to discover the source of stories about the company, hid systemic privacy breaches from authorities and covered up fraud in its Brisbane office, according to ­internal documents.

An investigation into these allegations is currently under way. The outcome is irrelevant since the damage has already been done and it’s unlikely Vodafone will be made to pay compensation to the involved parties (usually whatever government agency oversees the regulation gets the winnings from any trail with maybe a pittance given to those actually harmed).

Protecting privacy can only be done by directly protecting it. Once privacy has been violated it’s too late to defend it. That’s why I push cryptography so heavily. Privacy laws are irrelevant if you have taken effective measure to protect your privacy. If you’ve failed to protect your privacy the laws are still irrelevant because the damage has already been done.

Begging the State to issue decrees is a waste of your time that can be better spent learning how to actually address the issue you’re petitioning the State about.

Sometimes You Just Have To Have Fun

I’m an oddity in that I don’t really enjoy playing most of the Metal Gear games. They’re great titles but stealth has never been my thing. Of the series Metal Gear Rising is the only one I’ve played through multiple times, which I’m pretty sure qualifies as heresy amongst the Metal Gear community. But I really enjoy the characters from the games and I’m not alone. Most fans of the series are happy simply dressing up as the characters for cons but one guy decided to replicate some of the gun slinging shenanigans of Revolver Ocelot and it’s goddamn impressive.

That guy obviously invested a lot of time into learning how to do that so it was inevitable that somebody would come along and shit all over his accomplishment. Of the people I shared this video with most thought it was amusing but a couple had to comment about his violation of the four rules of gun safety and the fact that those skills aren’t practical.

I think we all need to take a moment to reflect on the fact that sometimes it’s OK to have a little fun. Firearm safety isn’t something I take lightly but I’m not even sure if those revolvers are real. If they are they are single-action revolvers so the chances of something bad happening, even if they’re loaded, is pretty minimal so long as the hammers aren’t cocked. While I won’t go so far as to say it’s totally cool to fling real guns around like toys I’m also not going to get too worked up over it.

And what he’s demonstrating certainly isn’t practical but who gives a flying fuck? I don’t know about everybody who shoots but I certainly spend time doing things with firearms that have no practical value. Sometimes you just need to have some fun. Yeah, I get it, time spent learning impractical fun tricks could be better invested in practicing practical skills. But sometimes you just need to enjoy yourself, which is why there are impractical things like televisions and movie theaters.

Some people seems to have a propensity for shitting on anybody they’re jealous of. If you’re on of them and feeling jealous of somebody why not spend the time you would normally take to bitch about them to learn how to do what they do? It would be a lot more productive and far less annoying. Who knows, you might even have a bit of fun.

The moral of the story: there’s no need to be so serious all the time.

All Laws Are Backed By The Threat Of Death

A lot of people, either willfully or ignorantly, haven’t comprehended the fact that all laws are backed by the threat of force. I like to point this out whenever one of my statist friends advocates for a new law that seemingly carries minor consequences. Usually I’m rewarded for me efforts by being accused of making a hyperoblic statement or being ridiculous. But facts are facts and laws are violence:

On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.

I wish this caution were only theoretical. It isn’t. Whatever your view on the refusal of a New York City grand jury to indict the police officer whose chokehold apparently led to the death of Eric Garner, it’s useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, in violation of New York law…..

The problem is actually broader. It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It’s every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right. I often tell my students that there will never be a perfect technology of law enforcement, and therefore it is unavoidable that there will be situations where police err on the side of too much violence rather than too little. Better training won’t lead to perfection. But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.

If a person I’m debating is especially touchy they will usually reply with a variation of, “So you don’t support any laws? You’re fine with people murdering other people?”

Anarchism isn’t the opposition to all laws but the full comprehension of the fact that laws are backed by the threat of force. Therefore we put it on individuals to decide what they’re willing to enforce. Historically stateless societies had laws against initiations of force such as assault, murder, rape, theft, and other situations where one person was clearly harming another. These laws existed not as decrees written by men in marble buildings but by the actions of individuals.

Consider murder. Most individuals are will defend themselves if somebody tries to murder them and will go so far as to kill their attacker. The same goes for assault. Somebody being assaulted is typically willing to defend themselves to the point of escalating to deadly force is their attacker continues to escalate matters. Rape is another crime where victims are generally willing to escalate matters to deadly force if necessary. Theft, although seldom reaching such a drastic point, can result in somebody killing a thief, usually if the thief attempts to interfere when the rightful owner arrives to retrieve their property.

But very few people are willing to post a sign on a road with an arbitrarily selected limit and kill anybody who exceeds it. They may be willing to support a speed limit if somebody else is willing to enforce it but that is different than being willing to take the responsibility upon themselves.

The other factor in stateless law is whether members of a community will tolerate it. Let’s return to murder. If somebody was attacked and circumstances escalated to the point where the intended victim killed the aggressor would members of the community support it? Historically most communities were fine with that by the fact members didn’t see it as necessary to punish the would-be victim. The same could not usually be said for individuals who attempted to enforce victimless “crimes.” If you murdered somebody who exceeded your arbitrarily posted speed limit it is likely other members of the community would view you as a murdered and retaliate. In stateless societies each individual was a lawmaker and the community was the check and balance.

Laws are threats of force. The question is whether you’re willing to use that force to prevent a certain action. If you’re not then you have no business asking somebody else to do. If you are then you have no need to have others write it down and vote on it. That is the basis of anarchist law and that is why stateless societies tended to be far more peaceful than their statist neighbors and why the number of laws were very few.

Law Don’t Protect Your Privacy

I have a confession to make. Even though I beat on the privacy drum constantly I can help by groan whenever I hear somebody saying stronger privacy laws are needed. It’s not because I disagree with their sentiment. Usually people demanding stronger privacy laws have their hearts in the right place. But their efforts are wasted. Privacy laws don’t protect privacy.

Consider medical records. The legal system through numerous laws and court rulings generally considers medical records to be confidential. While that’s all fine and dandy that hasn’t stopped the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from obtaining medical records:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been sifting through hundreds of supposedly private medical files, looking for Texas doctors and patients to prosecute without the use of warrants.

Instead, the agents are tricking doctors and nurses into thinking they’re with the Texas Medical Board. When that doesn’t work, they’re sending doctors subpoenas demanding medical records without court approval.

The DEA can’t even count how many times it has resorted to the practice nationwide. A spokesman estimated it was in the thousands.

Even though these medical records are generally treated as confidential the DEA can still obtain them without so much as a court ordered subpoena. That’s because privacy laws do not equal privacy. Privacy is the ability to control who has access to your personal information. It necessarily implies you being the primary controller of your information and deciding who can and cannot access it. If you really want medical records to be private you should advocate that individuals be granted sole possession of their records and be allowed the exclusive right to decide when and by who they can be accessed.

Get Your TSA Approved Lock Keys Here

Air travelers who don’t have firearms in their checked luggage probably use a special Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved lock. What is a TSA approved lock? I’ll let the TSA’s very own Blogger Bob explain:

TSA has worked with several companies to develop locks that can be opened by security officers using universal “master” keys so that the locks may not have to be cut. These locks are available at most airports and many travel stores nationwide. The packaging on the locks indicates whether they can be opened by TSA.

In other words TSA approved locks are locks with an included backdoor that can be used by TSA officers to access your luggage. I will take a moment to note that the use of TSA approved locks is not lawful when firearms are in your checked luggage so those of us who do fly with them do not, and legally can not, use TSA approved locks.

Now that I’m done with that aside, let’s discuss the major flaw inherent in backdoors. Backdoors necessarily break security systems, whether they’re physical locks of cryptographic algorithms, because anybody in possession of a master key can gain access. I hear some of you saying, “But, Chris, only authorized TSA agents have access to those master keys!” If only that were the case. Unfortunately some bozo went and accidentally released a picture of the TSA’s master keys.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, but pictures of keys can’t unlock locks!” While that’s true pictures of keys can be modeled and things that can be modeled can 3D printed. Behold! 3D printer models for TSA master keys! Now anybody with a 3D printer can create keys that can utilize the backdoor on TSA approved locks.

Herein lies the problem with backdoors, it only takes one person to accidentally reveal the master key to render anything secured with the backdoored system insecure. In this case a single careless TSA agent allowed a ring of TSA master keys to be photographed and therefore reproduced by anybody. The same threat would apply to any government mandated backdoors in encryption systems. It would only take one careless person with access to the government master key to have it showing on their screen when a reported took photographed to render all data secured with that system insecure.

The moral of the story is say no to backdoors.

The Imaginary War On Cops

An ongoing war on cops continues to be waged. The situation has become so dire that Obama himself has signed a law to established a special warning system for threats against cops, which will allow cops to drop everything and give themselves the utmost priority. There’s just one problem: the war on cops isn’t real.

With all of the media, blog, and social media coverage of the supposed war on cops you might not realize that this year is looking to be one of the safest years to be a law enforcer:

Despite urgent warnings from police and others about a “war on cops” allegedly linked to the Black Lives Matter protest movement, statistics show 2015 is in fact shaping up to be one of the safest years for law enforcement in a generation.

According to the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), which keeps data on officer deaths going back over 100 years, 24 officers have been shot and killed by suspects this year. This puts the US on pace for 36 non-accidental, firearm-related police fatalities in 2015. Each one of such deaths is a tragedy for the officers killed, their families and the communities they serve, but this would be the lowest total in 25 years, aside from 2013 which saw 31 such deaths.

Considering all of the terrible deeds cops have been caught doing this year this statistic may seem surprising. But it just goes to show that most people prefer nonviolent solutions to societal problems. Instead of forming lynch mobs and hanging random police officers the vast majority of people have been demanding law enforcers be made to wear body cameras when on duty, face consequences when they perform a misdeed, and be subjected to jury trails when there’s any question about their actions. The public wants accountability, not blood.

Why is there all this hubbub about a war on cops then? Because the State relies on having a powerful, unaccountable police force to maintain its power. Law enforcers today are primarily revenue generators. The more power they wield the more revenue they can generate.

Civil forfeiture is a classic example of this. Under civil forfeiture laws an officer can confiscate property by just saying they believe it’s related to a drug crime and the burden of proving its not falls onto the rightful owners. Since the expense of proving property stolen under civil forfeiture isn’t related to a drug crime is commonly higher than the value of the property the rightful owners seldom goes through the process. Such a scheme only works if officers remain unaccountable because the moment they are accountable they will refuse to confiscate property unless very real evidence exists implying it is tied to a drug crime.

And civil forfeiture laws aren’t the only example of this. Consider the lowly speeding ticket. If you send the municipality that issued it a check the matter goes away. Fighting it, on the other hand, is usually an expensive process because it requires a hearing and those can only be obtained during normal working hours, which means taking time off of work. In addition to that the process is generally one sided because it’s your word against the officer’s and the average judge is apt to side with his fellow over you.

With more people demanding police officers be held accountable the State is in a tough spot. Failing to act on the people’s demands will further raise questions about its legitimacy amongst the people. Expanding law enforcers power to make them even better revenue generators will raise such questions even faster. Therefore it must make it appear as though police officers are targets and need more power to protect themselves against those evil criminals that want them and everybody else dead.

Don’t fall for it. Look at the data and realize that law enforcers today are much safer than law enforcers were in the past.

Same Exploits, New Target

I can’t wait for self-driving cars to hit the market. If there’s one thing I won’t want to waste my time doing it’s driving. Unfortunately public transportation is limited by destinations and times. Why should I schedule my entire day around the whims of a public transportation provider when I can have the best of both worlds?

But a lot of people don’t agree with me. The biggest argument I hear against self-driving cars is that they could make mistakes. This is an especially laughable argument since humans make mistakes while driving frequently enough to kill over 30,000 people per year in the United States alone. Another argument against self-driving cars is that hackers can more easily manipulate them into performing undesirable actions such as going to an incorrect destination or crashing. Seemingly supporting this argument is recent research that demonstrated how self-driving cars could be manipulated by feeding their sensors faulty data:

The multi-thousand-dollar laser ranging (lidar) systems that most self-driving cars rely on to sense obstacles can be hacked by a setup costing just $60, according to a security researcher.

“I can take echoes of a fake car and put them at any location I want,” says Jonathan Petit, Principal Scientist at Security Innovation, a software security company. “And I can do the same with a pedestrian or a wall.”

Using such a system, attackers could trick a self-driving car into thinking something is directly ahead of it, thus forcing it to slow down. Or they could overwhelm it with so many spurious signals that the car would not move at all for fear of hitting phantom obstacles.

This isn’t as damning as many people are making it sound. While the target has changed the exploit hasn’t. You can cause all sorts of havoc by feeding human drivers false data. Drivers have driving into bodies of water because their navigation software fed them incorrect data. Putting up fake road signs can manipulate people into taking wrong roads. Using an FM transmitter to broadcast a fake emergency message can cause all sorts of chaos.

Humans, like machines, use sensory input to make decisions. That sensory input can be exploited, which is how a lot of less likely to be lethal weapons work. Where machines differ is that they’re easier to update to protect against sensory exploitation. Sensory exploits on self-driving cars are likely correctable with software updates.

As machines continue to replace the need for human labor let us not forget that many of the weaknesses present in machines are also present in ourselves.

Everything Is Made Easier Thanks To The Internet

In high school I took two semester of German and in college I took two semesters of Japanese. Unfortunately my knowledge of these languages has deteriorated to such a point where I can’t read, write, or speak anything intelligible in either. This is mostly because I’ve had no real means of maintaining that knowledge.

Some time ago a friend pointed me to Duolingo, a website that focuses on helping people learn languages. I’ve been playing with it for a few days and I must say that it has impressed me. Sadly Japanese isn’t available but German is so I’ve been relearning a bit of that.

I’ve also been working on Esperanto. Why would anybody learn a manufactured language? Because a surprising number of people in various anarchist communities, including the ones here in the Twin Cities, know it. And because I’m not terribly good with human languages because I lack an understanding of basic language concepts. My hope is a manufactured language that is consistent in its rules will help me learn the concepts enough to make learning other languages easier.

In both cases I’ve been surprised at how well Duolingo works. The fact that it gamifies language learning helps motivate me to keep with it (I’m a sucker for imaginary Internet points). But the fact that it has you translate phrases both ways and, in the case of German, speak some of it helps.

What amazes me is that it wasn’t that long ago that the only practical way to study a language was to enroll in a language class at a university. Now there is a website that offer the basics for free and gamifies it to motivate you to keep studying. I’m constantly in awe of this future we live in, especially in how it makes access to previously scarce information widely available.